Ghana is not ready for validation – Ofosu Ampofo

Director of Elections for the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, has dismissed calls for validation exercise ahead of the November 7 general elections.

Mr. Ampofo who is also the National Vice-Chairman of the umbrella family strongly believes that there is no law backing such exercise and therefore must not be entertained in the country’s body politic.

He also believes that once validation is introduced a lot of people will be disenfranchised in the upcoming general elections, cautioning that the country must hasten slowly.

“As far as our laws are concerned we are not ready for validation. Do you know the number of people who have traveled outside the country and would be coming home to cast their vote during the elections?”

“If we go ahead to validate people before they can vote, do we know the number of people who are going to be disenfranchise? We are not there now. There is no law backing validation and I don’t think that law should be permitted at any time in our system now looking at the exigencies of time”, he noted while interacting with Fiifi Banson on Anopa Kasapa on Kasapa 102.3 FM Tuesday.

His comment was in reaction to whether there is the need for validation as being championed by some political parties, especially, the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) and Civil Society Organisations.

Validation is the process a registered voter goes through to confirm his or her name in a voters’ register prior to an election. After the exercise, the list of the confirmed registered voters are migrated onto a new voters’ register which is used the election exercise. When one fails to validate his or name, it means that his or her name will not be captured in the new electoral album that would be used for conducting the said elections, and thereby, will not be able to exercise his or her franchise.

Mr. Ampofo, a former Local Government Minister commenting further told Banson that validation is done in countries that exercise compulsory registration and therefore does not see the reason why Ghana should be doing same when its laws does not permit such.

“In countries where they are practicing validation – once you go and validate your name, they migrate your name onto a new voters’ register which is used for the voting exercise and we cannot go to that regime because it is not part of our law”.